Justice committee  In fairness, I'm not. You're quite right. I was relying on the testimony of the senior Justice officials who have canvassed the views of other prosecutors. Could you find one, two, or ten prosecutors who think their lives might be made easier by the listing process? I'm sure you

Justice committee  No, because the difference is that you have to think about.... Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn't; I shouldn't throw that away. But it's totally different. That's all I'm saying. I don't know what the word would be, but there's a gangsta culture, and if you ask most teenagers--

Justice committee  It may satisfy me, but it's not going to stop the individually accused Hells Angels member from delaying the trial process by challenging the listing process you've created. That challenge wouldn't be open to him or her if you just left it alone or created that kind of evidentiar

Justice committee  Taking judicial notice isn't much different from what I am saying now. The only thing is it's going to be less clear. You're still going to end up with litigation because the defence will be able to say, “Well, you can't take judicial notice of it. What are you basing that on?” A

Justice committee  Okay, but remember that the Criminal Code doesn't require proof of a well-structured organization. I'll go back to that again. I'm not alleging any mala fides on the part of the crown in the Lindsay case. It was the first major criminal organization prosecution, at least in Ontar

Justice committee  No, because they can't object to the admissibility of it. The code provides for it. The only thing they can do is seek leave to cross-examine. They can't just insist on it as a right. Parliament took care of that a long time ago. My point is that to be granted leave to cross-ex

Justice committee  First of all, the only prosecutors I saw testify before you were Christopher Mainella, the senior crown counsel from the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, PPSC—I thought his bailiwick was in Alberta, but I might be wrong—and Mr. Bartlett and his colleague, whose name escapes

Justice committee  That's a good point. It's Chief Justice LeSage. I think we all call it Code-LeSage, but it should properly be called LeSage-Code.

Justice committee  I couldn't speak to other provinces, but much of the LeSage-Code report was modelled on what they're already doing in B.C. I think Quebec has a similar situation. Ontario was the most inefficient. That's all I can speak to.

Justice committee  When I say “overkill”, first of all, a judge would rarely say that, for a lot of reasons. Number one--

Justice committee  No.

Justice committee  Absolutely. When I spoke to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice about two years ago, it was a major concern of the entire group--there were about 150 there--that the crowns were engaging in overkill in these prosecutions, and especially because the terms of the code don't need

Justice committee  That's a good question, Mr. Comartin. I think efficient lawyers would have that issue determined before trial. Certainly now in Ontario, in the aftermath of the Code-LeSage report, it is something that would have to be addressed before trial to promote trial efficiency.

Justice committee  Absolutely. There's a committee or task force in the Ontario Attorney General's office that's tasked to engage in the implementation. There's a judicial committee. There are liaison committees between the judiciary, the crown, and the defence bar. Legal Aid is taking it very seri

Justice committee  I don't know if that's entirely correct, and I beg to differ in this respect. The judgments say they won't rely on the other judgment as the basis for the finding in their case. I'm reasonably confident I'm correct in this: for the crowns in Ciarniello--that's the second Ontario